It is estimated that 34% of adults in the United States are overweight and an additional 32% have obesity. The myriad metabolic, inflammatory, degenerative, cognitive, and neoplastic sequealae of obesity together cost more than $168 billion annually and account for nearly 10% of all healthcare expenditures in the United States.
Behavioral and pharmacotherapeutic treatments for severe obesity have been met with limited long-term success. In contrast, metabolic and bariatric surgeries such as Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB) leads to significant and sustained weight loss. Because of its excellent clinical outcomes, RYGB is currently the most commonly used surgical therapy for obesity. Metabolic and bariatric surgical procedures have increasingly been performed laparoscopically. Reduced postoperative recovery time, markedly decreased post operative pain and wound infection, and improved cosmetic outcome are well established benefits of laparoscopic surgery, derived mainly from the ability of laparoscopic surgeons to perform an operation utilizing smaller incisions of the body cavity wall.
Despite the various metabolic and bariatric surgical procedures each providing chances for weight loss and associated improvements in comorbid conditions, there is wide variability in outcomes (e.g., weight loss, diabetes improvements, etc.) among individual patients who receive such surgeries. Several clinical, demographic, psychological, and surgical predictors of weight loss have been reported, but these factors explain only a small fraction of the variation in weight loss after surgery. The identification of novel predictors of outcomes after metabolic and bariatric surgical procedures can both provide insight into the biological mechanisms of action of this procedure, as well as provide predictive markers that may be used to substratify those patients who may respond best to surgery or alternative treatments. Additionally, because numerous factors can affect a patient's outcomes following bariatric surgery, and because some factors may be more relevant for some patients more than others depending on an individual's overall health, it can be difficult for medical professionals to consider and balance the factors to arrive at an accurate prediction as to how the surgery will affect a particular patient. It can be even more difficult, and likely impossible, for non-medical professionals, e.g., patients, to consider and balance such factors.
Accordingly, there remains a need for improved systems and methods for predicting metabolic and bariatric surgery outcomes.